Walnut roll – Orehnjača recipe

Another flavorful recipe from grandma Maria’s cookbook is walnut roll (cake), in Croatian language (travel notes) called Orehnjača (oreh or orah is Croatian word for walnut).

Preparation requires on average about 1h or a bit more of your time but once delicious roll is baked you’ll quickly realize that it was well worth the effort.

Walnut roll dough ingredients

• 500g or 1lb or 2 cups of all purpose flour
• 110 mL or 1/2 cup of sugar
• 110 mL or 1/2 cup of butter
• 1 tablespoon of dried yest
• 1 teaspoon of salt
• 3 egg yolks
• 110 mL or 1/2 cup of milk*
• 1/2 lemon
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar

Dough preparation

Dough should be prepared first by mixing warm milk with the yeast, sugar and melted butter. Give it a good mix and then add egg yolks, salt, grind in a bit of lemon peel, follow with rum, vanilla sugar and flour.

Mix long enough or until dough stops sticking to the wooden spoon. Keep adding flour if necessary. Then kneaded it a few minutes on a lightly floured board. Leave it to rest covered in a bowl, in a warm place, 30-60 minutes or until its volume increases.

This will make 2 loafs of orehnjaca so, after dough increases in size, split the dough into two parts, knead each some more and leave them to rest another few minutes.

Walnut filling ingredients

• 460g or 1 lb of crushed walnuts
• 50 g or 0.1 lb of raisins
• 110 mL or 1/2 cup of sweet flavored rum
• 110 mL or 1/2 cup of sugar
• 1 cup or 250 mL of milk*
• 1 pack of vanilla sugar
• 1/2 lemon

For filling mix well walnuts, raisins, rum, sugar, vanilla sugar, hot milk and grind in some lemon peel.

Once filling is done spread some flour on your work board and spread each dough to ~ 3mm thickness. Place on each dough 1/2 of walnut filling, roll and place it into a baking pan. After you are done with both leave them covered to rest another 15 minutes in the warm place.

Bake on 160ºC or 320F for around 50 minutes (what will depend on your oven).

Let it cool slightly before taking it out of a baking pan.

* Scalded milk was in original family recipe but since today milk is pasteurized it is heated up only to better dissolve other ingredients.

Bon Appetit!